Channel 10 may very well be answerable for Lisa Wilkinson’s authorized prices and any damages in her defamation case introduced by Bruce Lehrmann if she loses, it may be revealed.
Mr Lehrmann is suing the extremely paid TV presenter and Channel 10 over protection of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation in February 2021 – which he strenuously denies and have by no means been confirmed in courtroom – claiming they had been defamatory.
When Ms Wilkinson made the uncommon selection to interrupt off from Channel 10’s authorized crew, it was reported she can be paying “out of her own pocket”.
But that can solely occur if she wins, an evaluation of authorized paperwork and interviews with a number of authorized consultants has confirmed.
It all centres on one key sentence within the 23-page doc filed by prime silk Sue Chrysanthou SC which defends the declare in opposition to Ms Wilkinson.
That sentence claims Ms Wilkinson “says that she is an employee for the purposes of the Employers’ Liability Act 1991 (NSW)”.
Under that laws, an “employee is not liable where an employer is also liable” if “an employee commits a tort (in this case, defamation) for which his or her employer is also liable”.
Veteran media lawyer Peter Bartlett unpacked the authorized jargon.
He defined if Ms Wilkinson loses the case and is discovered to have dedicated defamation in opposition to Mr Lehrmann, she will likely be cleaned of all authorized prices.
She will likely be protected financially by Channel 10, who must pay for Ms Chrysanthou – in addition to their very own authorized crew that’s headed by Matt Collins KC.
Ms Wilkinson and her employer are separate respondents to the defamation case, that means the Federal Court might discover one, each or neither answerable for damages.
But Mr Bartlett mentioned the caveat of the act is that she received’t be protected if she wins, or in authorized phrases, is discovered to not have dedicated the tort of defamation.
“If she wins, she would have paid her own legal fees and would still be out of pocket. Because normally you would recover 75 or 80% of your costs,” he mentioned.
Mr Bartlett mentioned normally the place a media firm is sued and their reporter is sued, the media firm indemnifies (financially protects) the reporter they usually have the identical authorized illustration.
“So right here it‘s very unusual … That the reporter has separate representation,” he said.
Another top legal source claimed Ms Wilkinson could be “up to hundreds of thousands of dollars” out of pocket even if she wins due to the gap in the costs paid and damages awarded, which they put slightly lower than Mr Bartlett, at “60 to 70 per cent”.
The source said yet another caveat is that Mr Lehrmann may not have enough money to pay the damages if Ms Wilkinson wins – in which case, Ms Wilkinson may be out of pocket by 100 per cent of her costs.
And to make things more complicated, another legal source said that because Ms Wilkinson is pleading truth in her defence – a defence which takes more resources to prove than others such as qualified privilege (which she is also pleading) – Channel 10 will have to pay Mr Lehrmann even higher damages if she loses.
The source said that because of this, Channel 10 will likely try to find a legal loophole out of abiding by the act and paying such hefty costs.
They said that essentially, the only way Ms Wilkinson would have guaranteed avoiding financial risk was if she had stuck with Channel 10s lawyers.
Mr Lehrmann was charged with sexual intercourse without consent in August 2021 and pleaded not guilty to the charge that was later dropped.
He has always denied having sex with Ms Higgins and any wrongdoing during the trial.
Ms Wilkinson, who renewed a multi-year contract with Channel 10 in 2021, remains employed with the network but has not appeared on screen since quitting The Project in November.
Her decision to hire her own legal team follows a bruising Logies fallout which resulted in a delay to the criminal trial.
The TV presenter came under fire after thanking Ms Higgins in her acceptance speech for the Outstanding News Coverage Logie award.
It prompted the Chief Justice of the ACT Supreme Court to delay the trial “through gritted teeth” from June to October, after defence lawyers argued it could prejudice the jury.
After the trial, a letter written by Network 10 executive vice-president Beverley McGarvey claimed that neither the network’s senior authorized counsel or Ms Wilkinson realised that they had been cautioned in regards to the speech in a gathering with the Director of Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold.
The first trial collapsed following juror misconduct and the DPP in the end didn’t proceed, with a second citing Ms Higgins’ psychological well being.
The defence – which pleads fact and certified privilege – alleged Ms Wilkinson “at all relevant times” understood Network 10 employed an professional authorized crew with expertise in “defamation and contempt”.
Mr Lehrmann launched authorized motion on February 7 in opposition to Lisa Wilkinson and Network 10, in addition to News Corp Australia’s News Life Media and news.com.au’s Samantha Maiden.
He alleged Channel 10 and News Corp’s tales implied 4 defamatory meanings, together with that he “raped Brittany Higgins in [then] defence minister Linda Reynolds’ office in 2019”.
The defence doc filed by Ms Wilkinson’s barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC mentioned it is going to show Mr Lehrmann’s conduct “amounted to rape”.
News Life Media and Channel 10 are but to file its defence – they’ve a deadline of March 8.
Channel 10 declined to remark.
Source: www.news.com.au
